


Of Pirates And Space

by Jathis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Asexual Character, Asexual Earl, Autism, Autistic Carlos, Carlos is Autistic, Fibro Cecil, Multi, Native American Cecil, Native American Character(s), Native Earl, POCecil, Trans Carlos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jathis/pseuds/Jathis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earl Harlan is a mercenary assigned to serve as a bodyguard for a scientist named Carlos.<br/>Cecil is a annoying space pirate.<br/>Things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/gifts).



Earl Harlan wished for a mission that would go smoothly for once in his life. The mercenary was well aware that his line of work was meant to be a little difficult of course but he still found it irritating whenever he was forced to deal with the space pirates that had been attacking vessels more often.

Not to mention that there was one pirate in particular who seemed to  _always_  find whatever ship he was protecting and attacked it without mercy every single time.

This time however, the mercenary had been hired with the express purpose of serving as a bodyguard for a scientist destined to give a speech during some kind of meeting of the minds seminar. He supposed that this was better than guarding cargo; the pay and the food were better at least, and he supposed that the scientist being attractive helped too.

Earl blushed as this thought forced its way into his head again in the dining area. He shook his head sharply to rid himself of it, looking over at the scientist in question. He was happily talking to someone else, toying with the end of one of his locs as he did so, his other hand flapping in excitement about whatever topic they spoke of. The scientist Carlos flapped his hands a lot whenever he spoke of something that had caught his interest.

Earl thought that it made him look cute.

He hissed to himself when he caught himself thinking that way about his client again, smacking himself on the forehead with his three-fingered hand to clear his mind. He needed to stay focused on just protecting him. He really didn’t need to add the extra annoyance of having feelings for him into the mix too.

“Get it together, Harlan,” he muttered to himself. He gasped when the implant under his eye patch started to go off, sending warning signals directly into his brain. “No,” he whispered, his single eye growing wide. “Oh no no no!”

There was a loud smashing sound in the distance and everyone save for Earl in the dining area lost their balance as the ship was violently rocked to the side and knocked off of its course.

“Damn it all!” Earl snarled, moving to grab Carlos’ arm as the door was blown wide open.

“Everyone get down and don’t move! As long as you listen nothing will happen! Understand?” a familiar voice barked.

“Earl! What’s going on?” Carlos asked, stumbling after the mercenary as he was led to the back door.

“We need to get out of here,” Earl hissed. “My ship should still be hooked up to the underside of this one. If we can just slip out…” His words were cut off when the back door was promptly destroyed, their way blocked by several heavily armed pirates. Earl growled, pulling Carlos closer to him as he turned to face their captain, the same one who had been seemingly following him on every mission he had been taking so far.

Cecil smiled brightly as he tapped his cane on the ground, flipping his long braid over his shoulder as he locked eyes with Earl. “Harlan! Fancy seeing you here!”

“Palmer…”

“And you’ve got the pretty scientist! What a coincidence! I’m here for him too! So you can just hand him over and…”

“Earl?” Carlos asked.

“You’re not taking him from me so easily,” Earl warned and Cecil sniffed, holding his cane up to serve as a weapon.

“Then we’ll fight for him,” he said.

“Fine by me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Earl grumbled softly as the cool cloth was pressed against his single eye. He shifted in his restraints, hissing as the bruises on his face and sides flared up again. “Dammit…”

“Don’t move too much,” Carlos warned.

“Some bodyguard I turned out to be,” Earl muttered. “I’m sorry,” he said before Carlos started to tend to a split on his bottom lip.

“Can you see?”

“Barely.”

“I’m sorry you got hurt over me.”

“I’m sorry for failing my job,” Earl offered, trying to look at Carlos through his swollen eye.

Carlos looked around the small storage room they had been locked in once they had been forced into the pirate’s ship. “What do you think he wants with us?”

“I don’t know,” Earl confessed. He looked up when the door slid open, moving to kneel between Carlos and Cecil. “Palmer…” he growled.

“Not very comfortable in here. I could give you both a room if you’d agree to listen to my offer.”

“What offer?” Earl demanded.

“Join my crew. Both of you.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I'm not going to help you attack people! I'd never help _anyone_ cause harm to someone else! Especially for something selfish like credit chits!”

Cecil and Earl looked at Carlos in surprise at the sudden outburst. Cecil hadn't expected the scientist to be the one to argue against joining and he frowned a little, awkwardly shifting on his feet and tapping his cane on the ground as he tried to think of what to say. Earl couldn't help but smile a little, giving Carlos a gentle nudge with his shoulder in gratitude.

“Well...well you haven't even listened to what I have to offer!” Cecil protested, his voice taking on a whining tone. “I was going to let you both out to have dinner with me and then we were going to talk about this more!”

“Well I'm not going anywhere because you attacked Earl and now you're asking us to become pirates with you!” Carlos countered.

The pirate captain whined, looking from Carlos to Earl. “I rehearsed it and everything!” he protested. “And I had Leland and Rob use the best of our supplies for dinner! You can't let all that good food go to waste!”

Earl was perfectly ready and willing to let the annoying pirate suffer alone with an unused speech but his stomach promptly reminded him that the assault on the ship had taken place just as they were about to have dinner and that an empty stomach was just as annoying as a whiny pirate. He sighed, looking over at Carlos. “We should at least eat his food in revenge,” he offered.

“I guess so...” Carlos relented. He pushed himself onto his feet, bending down to help Earl onto his own. “But just because we're eating that _doesn't_ mean we're going to join you!” he added, giving Cecil a warning look.

Cecil just smiled in relief, happily stepping back to allow the two to step out of the room. “You say that now but you can't be certain you won't be swayed to join,” he countered. “Besides, you both have nowhere else to go. You're on  _my_ ship, remember?”

“He's right about that,” Earl mumbled to Carlos, “but I'll think of something,” he promised.

“I trust you,” Carlos promised with a firm nod.

 


	4. Chapter 4

“I inherited this ship from my mother,” Cecil said, walking proudly in front of the two, leading them up a small flight of stairs onto the main bridge of the ship. There was only a few robotic members of the crew working on keeping the ship on course; the rest of the more organic crew most likely waiting in the dining area for their captain.

The pirate captain smiled as he waved to a few of the machines as they passed. “I renovated everything once it came into my care. It took a long time to expand it to fit everyone but I found a way through some...interesting ways to get credit chits!”

“You stole from others,” Carlos coolly translated.

“You focus far too much on where people's money comes from,” Cecil muttered.

“And you focus too little,” the other countered. “You shouldn't take things that don't belong to and you shouldn't be hurting people either! There's enough violence and war in the known galaxies without greedy pirates adding to it!”

Earl raised an eyebrow at that, glancing over at Carlos in mild surprise. He had thought the scientist to just be a quiet kind of person, someone who avoided all kinds of conflict no matter the source. And yet here he was...arguing without fear with the captain of a ship full of pirates that had just attacked their own vessel and taken the two captive with no chance of escape in sight.

He smiled a little, glad that Carlos was perfectly capable of fighting for himself.

Cecil paused in his walking, turning around to look at Carlos. He seemed hurt by the accusation of greed being thrown at him and he frowned, fiddling with his cane as he struggled to come up with something to say. “Well...well...I...uh...” He blushed and turned back around when he found himself unable to come up with anything, moving just a little faster towards the large set of doors ahead of them. “Come on! The others are waiting for us to start eating!”

“He's not as scary as everyone said he was,” Carlos murmured.

“You've heard of him before?” Earl asked.

“Everybody has,” Carlos said with a shrug. “He mostly focuses on attacking ships owned by Strexcorp but he's more than willing to attack anyone who comes into his sector of the space lanes too. How does he know who you are?”

“He's been attacking the ships I was hired to protect. I'm starting to get the feeling that he did that on purpose to try and get to me.”

“To recruit you?”

Earl thought about this, realizing that this could very well be the truth of it. “Maybe.”

“He's very odd,” Carlos confessed.

Earl nodded his head, offering him a small smile as they finally reached Cecil, ignoring the look he gave the both of them for taking so long.

“I hope the both of you will not be so rude in front of my crew,” Cecil sniffed.

“Your crew of pirates that attack people without provocation,” Carlos hummed.

“You don't have to bring that up every time.”

“I might have to.”

Earl laughed then and Cecil pouted, sniffing before throwing the doors open and stepping inside. Four long tables filled the room, covered in food from various different planets and cultures to accommodate everyone. The smell of the different spices and cooking methods filled the air, making their mouths start to water just at the thought of what they tasted like.

Cecil's crew were as diverse as the food. Carlos blinked and watched as one member of the crew walked past, his skin covered in patches of bark and leaves that grew out of his own flesh. This crew member then sat down and pressed a kiss to the temple of a human, a few flowers starting to sprout on top of his head when they smiled at each other.

“Welcome!” Cecil cried, spreading his arms out wide as he stepped further into the room. “Welcome to my ship; Night Vale!”

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Take whatever you want,” Cecil offered as he sat down, gesturing to the food with a sweep of his cane. The rest of the crew had immediately started to fill their own plates once their captain had sat down, taking this as their cue. Cecil perked up happily as a woman dressed in a hijab set a plate down in front of him once Earl and Carlos had walked away to get something to eat, smiling brightly at her as he nodded his head. “Thank you, Dana!” He blinked when she tapped the end of his nose with her finger, giving him a warning look.

“Be nice to them, Cecil.”

“Hey!”

“I'm serious.”

Cecil pouted but nodded his head, huffing as he fixed the end of his braid. “Don't embarrass me in front of my captives!”

“And if they say no?” she asked.

Cecil opened his mouth to say something but then paused, frowning as he thought about this. He closed his mouth with a click of teeth, looking embarrassed as he shrugged his shoulders. “I...may not have thought that far ahead,” he confessed.

“Be. Nice,” Dana insisted with a final tap to the end of his nose, walking away just as Carlos and Earl returned with their full plates.

The pirate captain sighed but turned to address his guests, putting on his best smile as he glanced at their plates. Carlos had chosen everything that didn't include meat; a few spinach pies and a fried rice mixed with various mushrooms. Earl had taken anything, seemingly uncaring as long as it was hot and meant to fuel his body; a few thin slices of spider wolf meat, a cricket hand pie, some of the fried rice Carlos had taken, and a fried claw from one of the ancient scribes that occasionally attacked explorers delving through long abandoned buildings filled with books and scrolls. Cecil felt like the choices in food helped him understand the two more and he smiled a little more genuinely as he cleared his throat. “So...”

“You were targeting ships I was guarding just to get to me, weren't you?” Earl asked.

Cecil blinked at the interruption but decided to go with it, shrugging his shoulders as he leaned back in his chair. “It's not exactly easy to get into contact with you, Early.”

“Early?”

Cecil giggled and continued, “and besides! I wanted to see how strong you were in action! You were amazing whenever we clashed before. If you were not serving as a bodyguard to someone else I'm sure you would have won again.”

“And you didn't stop to consider that you were ruining my life by constantly attacking every ship I was on? This last job was the only one I could get. You gave me a reputation as being bad luck for cargo ships!” Earl hissed, stabbing into his fried claw with his fork.

“There's no difference between my profession and yours,” Cecil sniffed, picking up his bread and tearing it in half, stuffing it with meat before putting it together again to make a rough sandwich. “You work and fight for money and I...I do the same thing! My crew and I fight and work hard for survival!”

“I don't attack people without being attacked first,” Earl pointed out. “And when I fight, it's not a disorganized mess and a sloppy display of poor fighting skills.”

“What do you mean?” Cecil asked with a frown.

Earl rolled his eyes, taking a moment to eat his food before answering. “I'm saying that your tactics and methods of combat are sloppy and if not for the fact that you were targeting small cargo ships; you would have been captured and shipped off to Strexcorp or something ages ago.”

“Strexcorp,” Carlos muttered, wrinkling his nose as one of his mushrooms started to bleed.

Cecil perked up at Carlos' reaction. “What do you know of Strexcorp?”

“They're a massive corporation that runs on slavery and forced conversion to their Smiling God religion,” he answered. “They go from system to system and if they can't enslave and convert the populations there, they destroy it completely before moving on to the next one. They don't even believe in real _science_. They refuse to accept any scientific findings or research that doesn't just praise their Smiling God!”

“It's why I refuse to work on a ship owned by them,” Earl confessed. “I know what they're actually shipping.”

“It seems that we all have a common enemy in Strexcorp.” Cecil frowned as the two looked at him in surprise. “Strex came to my system some time ago. My crew and I are all that's left of the population. Everyone else was...” he fell silent then, looking away as he struggled to control his emotions.

“Cecil?” Carlos gently asked.

“I'm just glad I was able to get out as many people as I could and get them on this ship. If we're disorganized in battle it's because we weren't always pirates. We're doing this to survive, Harlan. Nothing more.”

“But you're hurting innocent people,” Carlos pointed out.

“Only because we were trying to recruit Earl!”

“By attacking people?”

“Well...it worked, didn't it?” Carlos sighed and Cecil pouted at him. “Well if it makes you feel better; now that you're both here we won't be attacking anymore ships that aren't connected directly with Strexcorp.”

“Why not?” Carlos asked.

“Because you're part of the crew now!”

“But we never agreed to that!” Carlos protested.

“Why do you need the both of us so badly for your crew?” Earl asked, frowning thoughtfully to himself.

“You said it yourself. We're not the most organized when it comes to attacks and battle. You could teach us how to minimize causalities and maximize the damage we give out.” Cecil said. “And you,” he continued, gesturing to Carlos, “where were you going before we intercepted your vessel?”

Carlos frowned but answered, “I was going to a summit to discuss Strexcorp's abuses along the space lanes and how they should not be allowed to spread so easily without some form of rules restraining their power.”

“Exactly!” Cecil hissed. He raised up a hand, waving it wildly in the air to catch someone's attention. “Richard! Richard, over here!” The crew member that was partially a plant walked over with a tablet, handing it over to Cecil before taking his leave again just as Cecil turned it on, a projection of a small planet surrounded by yellow dots appearing on the surface. “Do you see this?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“That's where the summit was supposed to be held. Those dots? Strexcorp assault ships.” He watched as Carlos' face grew pale and he nodded his head grimly, turning the tablet off and setting it down on the table. “All ships that have entered that area of space have been neutralized by Strex. We saved your life, Carlos.”

“...What happens now?” Carlos softly asked.

“You both have no choice but to join us. Strex is after all of us and it's better if we work together rather than insist on working apart, right?”

Earl and Carlos shared a look between each other, realizing together that the pirate captain was right. Earl sighed and turned back to look at Cecil, struggling to make his swollen eye focus on the other. “We'll join your crew then since there's no other choice but you will honor our rules and requests at the same time. I teach your crew the way I wish to teach them and we follow my orders during skirmishes.”

“And I would like to be able to do as much science as I can while on this ship!” Carlos added.

“Neat!” Cecil agreed.

 


End file.
